THE ARAB STOCK 153 



according to local tradition the Arab " is a separate 

 wild breed kept pure in the desert from the time 

 of his first capture and domestication ; that his 

 habitat was Nejd and the high plateaux of Yemen, 

 and that he owes his distinguishing qualities to 

 the fact that his original blood has never been 

 mixed with that of breeds of inferior type. In 

 physical science there is as yet nothing positively 

 ascertained which would show this to be improbable. 

 The high plateaux of Arabia, though all of them 

 desert land, . . . are neither without pasture nor 

 without water. It is unquestionable that the wild 

 ass existed, if he does not still exist, in Yemen, 

 and the wild horse, too, may have there existed." 

 Later on it is added that " it is quite conceivable 

 that in the gradual drying of the peninsula, of 

 which we have geological proof, a section of the 

 wild species may have found itself cut off in the 

 south from the rest of its kind, and have developed 

 there in isolation the special qualities we find in 

 the Kehailan [Arab]." 



From the concluding passage it may be inferred 

 that the writer considers the Arab to be descended 

 from the same species as that which gave rise to the 

 ordinary horses of Western Europe ; the argument 

 will, however, stand just as well, and be even 

 stronger, if the ancestral stock were regarded as 

 a species by itself. In either case, some of the 

 objections raised against the views previously 



